The Mountain and the Valley

Every night at midnight, the purple clouds came out to dance with the blushing sky.

It was the Mountain Spirit, Akwuk, expelled to her foothills, who sent up the cumuli to the rosy ceiling suspended between Kmarkn’s western and eastern peaks. A month past, Akwuk had come down from the mountain and entered the valley of Kmarkn at evening. She had passed through the line of cedars that divided her realm from Axwiy’s. Perhaps at this point, the Valley had sensed the Mountain’s unhallowed entry, or heard the strident thrum of its elysian heart on the night air.

All that any valley-dweller knew for certain is that Axwiy awoke, and a fierce pursuit ensued. The gales that flew in the wake of the two spirits were enough to draw half of Kmarkn out of their beds and to their windows, where a crescent moon provided too little light to reveal the forms that rushed and whirled and crashed together with a frenzied howling in the streets.

By daybreak, it became clear to the sleepless valley that its spirit, Axwiy, had been driven skyward into the green folds of the Monashees, and that the Mountain Spirit was now exiled amongst them. Where before heaven’s blue-white dome had reared, there now pressed down upon them a pink sky that obscured all but fifty feet of the mountain’s base. It was this blushing barricade that Axwiy had woven in her desperation to shake Akwuk. She’d woven it so tightly that none could pass through but the animals, and Akwuk had come up against Axwiy’s ceiling again and again with increasing fervour, to no avail.

Thereafter, the lovelorn spirit sent up her pleas and pieties at the hour when Kmarkn’s heartbeats slowed in slumber, and most human senses were turned inward upon dreams. Those who lay awake to watch the meeting of Akwuk’s clouds with Axwiy’s sky were filled with pity for the former, whose violet messengers bobbed along the rosy ceiling in earnest, probing for a weak spot to slip through. By week's end, it became clear that Axwiy had overlooked no such faults. Few stayed awake to indulge the pitiful spectacle anymore, though come midnight, Akwuk’s clouds unfailingly travelled heavenward.

-

A month passed this way, bearing autumn into the valley, but it was an autumn unlike any before witnessed in Kmarkn.

Since the eve of the spirits’ mad chase through the village, Kmarkn had been flipped topsy-turvy. The valley-dwelling animals had gradually dispersed towards the foothills, and at some point crossed Axwiy’s barrier into the Monashees. Kmarkn was void of pigeon, hare, feral cat and field mouse, coyote, goose, barn swallow, and mule deer.

Naturally, it followed that the mountain-dwellers descended after Akwuk, those being bear, grouse, badger and wolverine, goat, bighorn, raven, and squirrel. Even the few stealthy lions who prowled Kmarkn’s peaks came down, though they kept near the treeline, should an unwary doe cross back over.

Kmarkn’s streams overflowed with runoff as frozen alpine ponds and runlets thawed in Axwiy’s presence on the mountain and the temperature above the fog line rose by ten degrees, bearing with it a breeze which smelled of snowmelt. In this temperate new climate, moss sprang up on bare rock, long-stagnant groundwater began to run, and the larches kept their green needles where a year past they’d have sported gold.

And not a soul living in the valley knew what to do.

With alpine predators roaming the streets— already, six chickens and a dog had been savaged— Kmarkn’s human residents were loathe to leave the safety of their homes, and resented not only Akwuk for repelling Axwiy into the mountains, but Axwiy herself, for having abandoned her valley. There were cries to be heard, day and night, pleading for the spirit to return as the valley air took on the thin, bitter quality of higher altitudes. But the oppressive pink ceiling stayed in place, and somewhere out of reach behind it, Axwiy turned a deaf ear.

The plight facing the humans of Kmarkn was a mortal lack of divine knowledge. What kind of celestial intervention was needed to reconcile two hostile spirits? Was there anything a human could do when it came to gods? What had caused such a rift in the first place? These were the questions which passed in clouds of chilled breath between the valley’s oldest inhabitants, and which were overhead by the youngest in their beds, pretending to sleep, or peeping around doorways and stairwells.

Ida Ke was one of these young eavesdroppers. She was also the only Kmarkn resident who still stayed up past her bedtime to watch Akwuk’s pathetic nocturnal endeavours. As such, she was also the only valley-dweller to have seen the Mountain Spirit’s physical form, the one that Akwuk took after she exhausted herself around dawn every morning. To speak of what she’d seen, Ida felt, would have been an insult to the elusive spirit. And Ida liked feeling that she shared a secret with a divine being like Akwuk, even if this being’s actions were the cause of the distress around her.

On the September morning on which she awoke to a temperature reading of -18°C on her bedroom window, Ida decided that it was time that she went looking for Akwuk.

Ida knew as much— that is to say, as little— as anyone else in Kmarkn about the Mountain Spirit Akwuk. She had been told far more about the merciful Valley Spirit Axwiy, who was responsible for the spring’s thawing breeze, the unfurling of insect cocoons and flower buds, and the return of the birds and the spawning salmon from southern shores. Axwiy was a Giver of Life, and it was she who made the valley livable for humans. On the other hand, Akwuk was not a spirit used to living among mortals. Her realm was one of cold stone, bare earth, coniferous evergreens, and permafrost. She sent icy gales down the mountainside, and every other year, buried a hiker or rock-climber in an avalanche. Whether she did this out of malice or carelessness, nobody knew.

The point was that Akwuk was unpredictable, and Ida’s heart thrummed painfully in her throat as she zipped herself into her bulkiest parka (the only one that her mothers would allow her outside in), and slipped a toy-sized cylinder of bear spray around her neck (also a new staple of leaving the house). Fortunately, it was a Saturday, and her moms were still asleep when Ida slipped out of her front door at seven-thirty and headed in the direction she’d last seen Akwuk.

Ida walked for eight minutes past front yards and dark, sleeping windows. Family pets were locked up inside with families, and none of the familiar labs and shepherds heralded her passing with their winsome barks. Another cold surge of fear rocked through her in that stillness.

A public thoroughfare running between two of the houses brought Ida to a dilapidated post-and-rail fence, beyond which sprawled a meadow that lapped up against the base of the Monashees. Being situated in the foothills, the meadow was ever-so-slightly raised above the village, and this had allowed Ida to watch Akwuk’s transformation from her bedroom window.

A month ago, the meadow would have been populated by a herd or two of mule deer; possibly whitetail, though the latter would have fled upon her arrival. Today, it was deserted save for a solitary, massive form several hundred yards away across the meadow. Even at a distance, Ida could identify it as the gold-brown back of a grizzly bear.

This, she hoped, was Akwuk.

Gripping the vial of deterrent at her neck, Ida slipped through the snaggle-toothed fence and began to cross the meadow. The air seemed to grow a degree colder with each step she took through the tall grass, and before she was within fifty feet of the bear, her nose and cheeks were searing.

This was her, wasn’t it? She had watched the tremendous bulk take shape in the same spot from which Awkuk's clouds had risen. Surely, it wasn’t a coincidence? Or, perhaps spirits possessed animal bodies to use for a day? Perhaps Akwuk wasn’t even in this body, but was off somewhere inhabiting a skunk or a weasel?

It was too late for second-guessing. The bear had swung its shaggy head around and fixed a pair of small, almond-shaped eyes upon hers. Ida had never been so close to a wild animal before, least of all a bear. But if it was as she feared, and this wasn't Akwuk, she had to know now.

Ida filled her lungs and threw her voice across the meadow. "Akwuk! Is it you? I saw you change! Akwuk, Great Spirit of the Mountain, please don't eat me!"

The bear gazed across the grass at Ida. Ida gazed back. Neither moved for several long heartbeats, and then the bear began to lumber towards her. When the mass of muscle and fur was within fifteen feet, it stopped and looked at Ida inscrutably.

"Are you… Akwuk?" Ida could barely hear her own voice, and realized that the bear spray was uncapped in her right hand. The animal before her remained watchful and unmoving, but a voice spoke to Ida out of the glacial air.

You witnessed my change?

"I wasn't spying on you, I promise!” This anxious confession spilled from her before she could catch it. Ida blushed and lowered her eyes. “I've watched you every night since August to see if the spirit of our valley would let you in... I wish she would, so this would all be over."

The bear cast its eyes up to the swirling pink ceiling that had blotted out the sun since August.

Perhaps, if she would hear reason, then there would be an end to this chaos. But Axwiy stops up her ears like a child! She would not hear of my affections when I professed them to her, and she will not hear from me now. Our time does not pass like yours. This state could persist for many human generations if Axwiy will not forgive me. And if she will not permit me re-entry to my own realm, then there is no hope of reconciliation.

“Your affections?” Ida repeated, fresh understanding dawning on her. “Everyone in the village thinks that you came down to wreak havoc on us, or right some old wrong against you. You came down… to confess your love to Axwiy?”

Ida was young still, and when it was between her and one of her older sisters, “love talk” made her squirmy. But now, it seemed perfectly natural that the Spirit of the Mountain should descend for the first time in six hundred centuries to confess her love to the Spirit of the Valley. Why, then, had Axwiy fled?

She believes that we are too different, Akwuk sighed, seeing Ida's confusion. I know that we are not, but she laughs! “A mountain and a valley? You may as well try to unite sea and sky! It is fated to end in misery.” She feels that I am too cold and blunt, too changeful in my moods and temper. Well, I feel that she is too given over to whims and fancies, and much too forgiving of other creatures— all except for me. Why does she condemn me to this earthly realm? She must know how my soul suffers so far from the sky and the clear air. It is pure cruelty!

While Akwuk spoke, Ida could not help thinking how she’d heard similar laments from her sister when she’d fallen out with a boyfriend over something that, in the end, turned out to be nothing at all. Ida thought carefully before she said anything more to the dejected spirit.

“You told her how you feel, then?”

How I feel? It was my sole intention, until she fled at the sight of me! As if this wasn’t wounding enough, that fickle ghoul made me pursue her up and down, shouting my declarations over her clamor! I doubt she heard a single thing I said. And then, when she’d left me well behind, she…

The bear cast a gloomy look up at the fog ceiling again, and a wistful sigh rumbled in its shaggy throat.

I’d have rather she insulted me outright than gone to such lengths to avoid me. Does she think she is the only being whose thoughts and feelings matter? What of the animals and plants? All of nature is in upheaval because of her selfishness. If she would only take down that ridiculous wall, or allow a single one of my messages to pass through… but she is stubborn and proud, too proud to admit when she is wrong. It is easier to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear.

“That’s true. It is easier,” Ida agreed. She frowned up at Axwiy’s ceiling, which was illuminated to a candy-like pink by the sun behind it. She missed the sun dearly. “Do you think that Axwiy would accept a message from me?” Ida said.

The bear’s eyes widened in a way which made it look less bear-like, and Ida detected something like a ripple that ran through the spirit’s form.

You would take a message to Axwiy for me?

“If it would end this.”

The voice fell silent, and the bear looked skyward. Then, in Ida’s right ear, Akwuk's voice said,

Listen closely.

-

Ida had not scaled any part of Kmarkn’s mountains since she was a small child, and even then, it had only been on day trips into the foothills with one or both of her moms.

She felt no fear as she crossed the meadow with Akwuk’s bear form at her side. Akwuk accompanied her right up to the dense, pink wall. Up close, it looked more like dyed lamb’s wool than fog. Ida reached out gingerly, and felt a quiet thrill of delight as her hand passed easily through the stuff. Why wouldn’t it? she thought. I’m an animal, after all.

You’ll have little to fear beyond this point. There are no predators left on the mountain. But do fear Axwiy, little one. She may be your benevolent deity, but she is also far older than any human or domestic beast. And she is angry.

Ida nodded, and then reached out somewhat hesitantly to stroke the bear’s broad, knuckled skull. The bear closed its eyes, and then opened them and looked straight into Ida’s.

We are counting on you, Akwuk said. And then the bear was not a bear anymore, but a mule doe with gold-brown fur who batted its liquid eyes at Ida before bounding off back the way they had come.

Ida nodded at Akwuk’s retreating form. She could do this. I can do this.

She turned around to face Axwiy’s woolly pink sky, and, shutting her eyes, stepped herself through in one big stride.

The light was the first thing that Ida noticed. It nearly blinded her after a month beneath Axwiy’s rosy gloom. Here, the sun beat down as it had before, greening up the grey earth and coaxing little rivulets forth beneath the leaf litter. Although the mountain’s deciduous species were well on their way to Autumn ambers and ochres, it was a comforting contrast to the naked birches and aspens in the valley. Not to mention, the temperature couldn’t have been less than -2°C.

Ida breathed deeply of the oxygen-rich atmosphere that Axwiy had dragged up the mountain behind her, and felt a twinge of resentment. Akwuk was right, she thought. Our Valley Spirit is a selfish one.

Fortunately, Axwiy was not a difficult spirit to find. Unlike the exiled Akwuk, there was no danger of a human spotting her in a compromising form up here, and Ida had not walked a hundred yards past the fog line when she became aware of a fast-moving shape in the trees ahead of her.

The shape appeared to be fast-moving because it was pacing to and fro, and every few paces or so, it would assume new form. Before she’d gotten within twenty feet of it, the entity had changed from a huffing stag to a skulking cougar to a kicking boar and then to a snapping fox and back again. The stag tossed its antlers; the cougar showed its fangs; the boar swung its tusks, and the fox turned its amber eyes upon her, a high-pitched whine emanating from between its black lips.

And then it was a cougar, again, watching her approach in silence.

A voice, gentler and simultaneously harsher than Akwuk’s, filled the air between them.

This is not a place for humans anymore. I am the spirit of this mountain, now.

“I don’t think that's true,” Ida said. She was surprised to find that she felt far less bold with Axwiy, the embodiment of the valley she’d grown up in, than she had with Akwuk.

“I’ve come to deliver a message from the Mountain Spirit.”

At this admission, the cat’s eyes blazed with hellish light, and Axwiy’s form began to cycle frenetically between form after form until she looked like no beast that had ever walked the earth. Ida’s heart had climbed high in her throat, and she felt in danger of being throttled by fear.

“It-it-it’s not a declaration of love! Or anything like that!” Ida lowered herself to her knees and folded her forehead to the earth in a bow. “Axwiy, spirit of my valley home. I beseech you to hear the message.”

Axwiy’s form was settling, though she couldn’t seem to calm herself entirely. At last, Ida found herself bowing before a red fox. The fox sat and closed its eyes.

Deliver your message, and leave.

“Th-thank you, Great Valley Spirit. Her message to you is this: Th-that she regrets having left her realm, and if she could, she would take it back had she known that her p-presence was so disgusting to you. She f-feels deeply ashamed, and wants nothing more than for things to b-be as they were. She said to tell you that as long as you live, you will n-never have to lay eyes on her again, if that is your wish. B-but she also wanted me to tell you that…er…oh, that “the mountain needs the valley as its steady, grounded base,” and that “the valley needs the mountain for its steadfastness and shelter.” If you were able to see past your differences”—

That’s enough.

Ida opened her eyes. She raised herself gingerly from the ground, feeling small, sharp bits of earth and stone fall away from her skin. When Ida raised her head, the fox was gone, and not three feet away knelt a girl her own age. The girl had eyes the color of glittering minerals, and they were brimming with tears.

Akwuk teases me endlessly. Did she tell you that? She teases me for having a "soft heart," for being too merciful with my seasons and for taking pity on you lot! You humans! She says it is my youth that makes me foolish, but I am as old as she is! The mountain cannot come before the valley. So, you see, I don't want to hear anything she has to say! She says that we need each other, but I don't need to be told that I'm not a proper Valley Spirit by some conceited mountain!

Ida's mouth had fallen open at the beginning of Axwiy's tirade, but now she nodded sympathetically, as she would to one of her sisters.

"So, all this time, Akwuk was hurting you. That's why you ran from her?"

Of course it was. Does she not know that? Does she not have feelings, as I do? Perhaps a Mountain Spirit cannot know the lowly emotions that trouble a Valley Spirit. I wanted to show her that she was no better than me— that I could take her place and be the grand, mighty mountain, looming over everything! She could be in my shadow, for once! But... it's not working, is it?

"No." Ida shook her head. "It's not."

How am I to face her now? I can't.

Without thinking about what she was doing, Ida reached out and closed a hand around the girl's skinny shoulder. It was warm flesh and blood. She gave it a squeeze.

"Yes, you can. You're the great Valley Spirit of Kmarkn. You can tell Akwuk the truth. She won't be angry with you; she loves you. And all of us down in the valley— we miss you, terribly. It's not the same without you down there with us."

The spirit smiled wanly at Ida, and one of those subtle ripples passed through its form.

"I'll come with you!" Ida added, scrambling to her feet and holding out her hand.

Axwiy stood of her own accord and grew several inches taller before Ida's dazzled eyes. She was still female in appearance, though she looked much less like a frightened human child than before.

Akwuk loves me?

Ida nodded earnestly. "Though, she may not be the best at showing it."

-

In the foothills of the Monashee Mountains, in the alpine village of Kmarkn, there was once a dire misunderstanding between the Spirit of the Mountain and the Spirit of the Valley. One belonged to the realm of stone and sky, the other to the realm of earth and wind. Belonging to such vastly different realms, neither could sympathize entirely with the sorrows and struggles of the other. This did not stop the Mountain from falling desperately in love with the Valley and making a mess of things, as those in love often do.